On 23 May Jonathan Calvert, George Arbuthot, Jonathan Leake and Dipesh Gadher published an indictment of the government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis. The Sunday Times report examines the government decision-making process in the crucial three weeks from 2–23 March as the number of cases in the UK rose from 14,000 to 1.5m. The report […]
The incredible revelations about Cummings and his 500-mile circular lockdown tours of County Durham filled the newspapers and the twittersphere all weekend. The story is symptomatic of Cummings’ arrogance – as well as his coronavirus. He had breached the lockdown rules we learned, not once but twice. More than that, during one apparent breach he […]
Joe Stanley is a farmer from the East Midlands. He describes himself as a conservationist, columnist and advocate for sustainability in food, farming & the environment. In a Twitter thread using data from a briefing by the National Farmers’ Union, he outlines the differences between our own UK food standards and those in the USA, […]
The revelations yesterday about Dominic Cummings’ apparent breach of the lockdown rules, travelling 250 miles to his parents’ home in County Durham while experiencing the symptoms of coronavirus, has sparked a flurry of activity on Twitter about the impartiality of the BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg. She has long been seen by some as too […]
Behind the scenes of this global pandemic, the tidying-up of Brexit and trade negotiations continue. The agricultural bill was passed through its third reading at the House of Commons on 13 May. It was the first to be voted on electronically by MPs, to comply with the Covid-19 social distancing measures. The bill had amendments […]
This Norwegian drama is tailor-made for English-speaking audiences; a small-town setting that overnight is invaded by alluring American strangers, stuffy legislators and big oil itself, all looking for the next boom. The series starts with a charismatic Texan, arrogantly determined that there is still plenty of oil off the Norwegian coast. Stavanger is a small […]
On 20 May, ITV news reported that four out of five local authorities in West Yorkshire have refused to enforce the reopening of schools in their area, and are instead leaving the decision to Head Teachers, who are ultimately responsible for the health and safety of children in their care. Various concerns have been raised […]
It’s not just that something stinks. It’s that consensus is growing that, as @DerekJames150 puts it, “Corruption in the UK is alive and well and living at 10 Downing Street!” Commentators around the world boldly remark on what they see as something rotten at the heart of British government. Twitter juxtaposed Trump, Putin, Johnson and […]
As the government lumbers heavily towards its third ‘no-deal’ Brexit deadline, it has strongly asserted that there will be no extension to the transition period. Stella Perrott considers the government’s capacity to deliver a managed Brexit over the coming weeks in the light of the findings of the recent publication of the Institute for Government […]
Michel Barnier issued a sharp response to the letter sent by UK chief negotiator David Frost on Tuesday with a missive of his own on Wednesday. It is as if the negotiations have burst out into the public realm with Britain abandoning face-to-face talks to try and convince us that the EU is just being […]
Whilst we are all preoccupied, rightly, with trying to survive the coronavirus pandemic the government is forging ahead with its Brexit agenda. Today, Wednesday 20 May, a Trade Bill will receive its second reading in the House of Commons. This Bill is paving legislation for the government to open trade negotiations with other countries, principally […]
The British government is discovering what it is to be a third country. Having published its near 300-page draft legal text yesterday, after the third round of talks ended last week with “very little progress”, our chief negotiator has now written to Michel Barnier complaining the EU is not offering us what we want. David […]
Former Ofsted chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw says children have “missed a huge amount of school and there are going to be adverse consequences.” He says the government is going to have to negotiate with teachers and say, “We’re considering bringing in schools over weekend periods, over holiday periods or extending the school day” and […]
So recently I learned from “Everything I Do I Do it for You” hit-maker Bryan Adams that coronavirus was definitely caused by Chinese wet markets. Lockdown hasn’t even lasted as long as that song was No 1, and I know which seemed to last longer. Bryan Adams has an interesting face in that, much like […]
While the country is focused on the coronavirus crisis and its consequences, Johnson and his government are busy trying to rip up all the promises they made to get their Brexit deal through, hoping that they can get away with far-reaching choices that will have huge consequences for the country. While Brexit formally happened on […]
Fake news isn’t only a social media problem. Politicians and the national press are equally good at it (or bad, depending on your point of view) but they’re far more dangerous because they seem more plausible. Yesterday, the Express ran an article that appeared to show a study by a highly respected German institute indicating […]
Ten days after Yorkshire Bylines published a story concerning the flawed computer code used by professor Neil Ferguson at Imperial College to model behavioural strategies for Covid-19, the Telegraph have written their own report: Modelling behind lockdown was an unreliable buggy mess, claim experts – essentially confirming the details. The Telegraph provides more expert evidence […]
It’s a Tuesday morning on 23 July 2019, and Boris Johnson has just won 66 per cent of the Conservative Party members’ vote, meaning that he is now our new prime minister. In a characteristically jovial speech, Johnson chimes that even some of his own supporters may “wonder quite what they have done”. Retrospectively, this […]
Covid-19 has resulted in challenges for most of us due to the social distancing rules. But what is the impact on the estimated 850,000 people with dementia in the UK? People with dementia need to do things regularly to keep refreshing their memory. Social contact, stimulation and routines are important for helping them to maintain […]
I saw a headline on Twitter this morning from a national newspaper claiming that it would do our “spoiled young” good to stay in Britain during lockdown rather than travelling over summer (can you guess which newspaper it was yet?) and it got me thinking. Why are generations before mine so desperate to tarnish us […]
The government seems yet again caught in trying to find its own makeshift solution for controlling the coronavirus pandemic. After abandoning the initial herd immunity strategy in favour of the World Health Organisation approach of test, trace and isolate that has seen much lower mortality wherever it was adopted, UK authorities seem on the brink […]
The Financial Times reported this week that Liz Truss at Trade and George Eustice at Defra are involved in a ministerial ‘spat’ over plans to cut tariffs on US food imports. The paper reports that Liz Truss wants to offer “incentives to help seal [a] trade deal” and is said to be drawing up plans […]
The government’s announcement of the publication of its 60-page strategy, Our Plan to Rebuild, for reopening the country, quickly turned a sensible and pragmatic approach to easing lockdown into an unnecessary scramble to rescue the government from another mess of its own making. Helen Davidson discusses how the indecent haste to implement the strategy coupled […]
With five working days left until schools are meant to reopen for nursery, reception, Year 1 and Year 6 children, doubts remain over their role in spreading the virus. This debate about children as vectors of the virus is becoming critical. Osama Rahman is director of analysis at the Department for Education (DfE) and chief […]
Discussion about the number of tests completed each day continues unabated. In the meantime, the low rate of home testing kits being returned – and their error rate, which may be as high as 30 per cent – goes largely unreported. Based on accounts of people self-testing, Helen Davidson examines why the failure rate might […]
In an overwhelming understatement on 5 April, UN Secretary General António Guterres defined war as a “non-essential activity” and called for a global ceasefire to allow the world to concentrate on the coronavirus pandemic. Less reported was his call to end to all violence, from the battlefield to the home. The UN is concerned that around […]
Twitter had gone into meltdown this morning after a doctored video of Keir Starmer was retweeted by several leading politicians including Nadine Dorries, MP and Junior Minister at the Department of Health. Her retweet has since been deleted. Unfortunately for her, it was captured and tweeted by plenty of others, including Paul Waugh, political editor […]
With a £337 billion hole in Britain’s finances, the chancellor, Rishi Sunak is urgently looking for ways to plug it. In a time of plummeting petrol prices, Helen Davidson examines how increasing fuel tax could help fund the coronavirus debt, assist the government’s gradual easing of lockdown and have only a marginal impact on consumers. […]
EU Legal guru warns UK it’s later than you think In a move calculated to focus minds on both sides of the Channel, a former Director General of the EU’s legal services department has delivered a stark warning, one that will echo particularly strongly in Whitehall. Unless an extension to the transition period is agreed […]
The Telegraph has got hold of a leaked Treasury document warning of a “sovereign debt crisis” unless the economy soon begins to recover from the seven-week coronavirus lock down. On 1 April, a week after the lockdown was announced, Yorkshire Bylines ran an article: Coronavirus and Brexit: double austerity on steroids is coming up which now […]